While we grow as humans, we keep coming across many things: happenings, events, and incidences. Each has some or another takeaway. Most of them go down the drain but a few stay stuck on memory lane. If I put it in the words of the new-gen, they are like tattoos but on the mind. I, too, have quite a number of them, which have made me learn and get the knowledge I got so far.
Even after 41-plus years, I distinctly remember that bright morning of 20th December 1980 - my first day at (A.L.L.) Ashok Leyland Ltd – Ennore. All of us, the Graduate & Diploma Engineer Trainees of A.L.L.- Bhandara unit, were full of excitement, albeit lined with anxiety.
We eagerly awaited everything, meeting new people and learning new things. And yes, of course, we were a bit nervous about the opening meeting.
In the first-ever meeting in a corporate setup, the Training Manager - Late Mr.LSN Guptha, a great L & D stalwart of his times, was addressing us. The opening speech was, of course, a great one. Inspiring and motivating, it set the deliverables for us and gave the directions to us.
But the special ‘present of lifetime’ came at the closing end. It was a cyclostyled booklet from the Welcome Kit handed over to us. In the center of its cover page was a stanza from a poem written by Nobel laureate R J Kipling in 1902:
“I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why, and When
And How and Where and Who.”
In the late 80s, when I joined Escorts Yamaha, I was introduced to 5W-1H, adopted by the Japanese in 1960 as one of many quality improvement techniques. It appeared to me like a sharp, crystalized theme of this poem.
Notwithstanding the genesis of this curiosity-catalyst 5W-1H, it has been helping me a lot. I always feel enabled to find answers to most of my professional and personal questions. As and when I delve deep into the learnings with them, I derive significant leverage from them. As I reflect more and more, I realize that ‘The Six Honest Serving Men’ now have manifested themselves into ‘Trusted Team Eleven’ as:
"With ‘5W-1H’ set in the central motif,
Stand: So-What, What-Else & What-If,
How much and 5-Why - all well proven;
Together Make 'Trusted Team Eleven.' "
There are many ways to look at life, both personal and professional. One way per se is to see it as a weave of warps of expectations and wefts of experiences. And as we all know, the gaps between these two emerge into problems. It is a well-established fact that solving problems (or not letting them arise) is one of the critical aspects of the game of life. You may also adopt 'The Trusted Team Eleven' in your games as my 'Present for the Future'. Lose or win, this team will always make each of the games great learning. And you can continue leveraging these learnings, always and forever.
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